Five things digital media planners should understand about buying TV ads
In the US, the way online video is traded has changed significantly over the past year, mainly due to Nielsen’s Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) and comScore vCE, both of which enable ‘TV-like’ panel measurement of web audiences.
Online video planners can learn from the TV model
These new measurement standards allow TV and video to be traded with a common price and currency across screens, meaning buyers of video ads only pay for ads served to their target audience. That is how TV has always done it, so it makes sense that this is now extending to digital.
As both standards vie for a foothold in the UK, EMEA players can do plenty to prepare themselves for the changes that have been so disruptive in the US over the last 12 months. In particular, it pays for people who have always worked in digital media to learn how linear TV is traded; this allowing them to learn the language of TV and provide television executives with consistency as ad buys converged into singular transactions that span multiple screens.
The following five points are a guide to help online video planners do that.
1. Understand GRPs, TRPs and CPP
The ‘accepted norm’ for buying and selling TV media are Target Ratings Points (TRPs), which is the unique audience reach multiplied by the frequency of an ad (i.e. how many times an ad reaches the target audience). It is often used interchangeably with Gross Ratings Points (GRPs), which is the overall reach of a campaign multiplied by the ad frequency (i.e. the size of the total audience reached by a specific ad, regardless of whether they are the target).
The cost per rating point (CPP) is the cost of buying one percent of the target population and provides a direct correlation with TV. It is calculated by dividing the total budget for the campaign by the total TRPs.
2. Know the size of the target audience
TRPs and GRPs are calculated using the total population, rather than the online one. Combining this figure with the size of the target demographic is key to providing a TV-style media plan, which works on the basis of an ‘in-target’ audience -- the number of males in the UK between 25 and 54, for example.
3. Plan in-target CPMs
TV media buyers ‘don’t pay for waste’ – i.e. they only pay for ads that reach the pre-agreed target audience. Rather than using the online standard of gross impressions, video ad planners need to work with in-target CPMs, which factor in a percentage of waste when targeting an audience with a video ad and are therefore consistent with TV.
In-target CPMs, CPP and TRPs are three key metrics for digital planners. Understanding them and their significance enables the creation of a common currency between online video and linear TV, making it easy for TV media planners to compare the digital channel to the medium with which they are familiar.
4. Use an audience measurement product
Nielsen OCR and comScore vCE provide third party verification of who saw the ad, and therefore enables the video planner to validate the audience delivery figures given to the advertiser. It also provides the same overnight metrics that TV buyers are used to.
5. Manage expectations
No media channel has zero percent waste against a specific audience target. However, there has been a persistent assumption that digital ads reached their desired audience 100 percent of the time. The reality that the in-target delivery is more likely to be around 30 percent for a niche audience must be explained to the client and their expectations managed accordingly.
Clearly, video is converging. Media planners who have dwelled in digital should prepare for the near future where video is video, regardless of screen size. These five steps will help them traverse this brave new world, and take advantage of the future of multi-screen video.
Lewis Sherlock is director, strategic planning EMEA, at Adap.tv.